Retention

[charliegirl]

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encarta.msn.com/encnet/departments/elementary/default.aspx?article=repeatgrade

Elementary
Repeating a Grade: Does It Help or Hurt Kids?
by Jeanne Sather

A California mother writes to me with a dilemma: Her five-year-old son is not doing well in kindergarten, and she wonders whether or not she should have him repeat the grade. "His teacher feels it could be a good idea," she writes, "but I'm still not sure what to do."

This mom may not know it, but she has wandered into the middle of one of the hottest debates in education today.

What's troublesome about this change is that there is plenty of evidence that simply having children repeat a grade will not solve their problems--and it may put them at higher risk of dropping out later.


Already, the pendulum is starting to swing back again in some school districts, such as Olympia, Washington's, where the policy is not to hold a child back. "It has to come from the parent," says kindergarten teacher Sally Bergquist. "If the parent is against [holding the child back], the teacher won't recommend it."


cynthiatweedle
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Good article, Charlie Girl. This is certainly an issue that can come up with ADHD due to the distractiblity. In my opinion repeating a grade would not help the child if that is the case. This can be a heart breaking reality. In our case we resorted to meds and that made all the difference. We were lucky, because for some children meds don't work. But for us it is working now and her grades have come up to A's and B's and she no longer says she is dumb. I certainly feel for the parent and child who face this problem.


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trid
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Joined: Mar 2006
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Posts: 18
Location: Valley Forge
Re: Retention
« Reply #2 on Apr 28, 2006, 8:34pm »

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I dealt with it on a smaller scale... my oldest son had to repeat Algebra because he didn't get an A or B the first time through. He was very frustrated and didn't bother working very hard the second time through it. He pulled off the required C for the second year, and now is taking Geometry.

Another son had to retake PreAlgebra 3 times. Talk about wanting to permanently discourage a teenager!

Because one of them was having such trouble in English, we had to put him in a 3rd grade level class when he was in 6th grade. But by then we were using the cyber school, so the social stigma of repeating a course wasn't as bad. And when he mastered the lower English class, we moved him back into 6th grade English. He was missing the real basics, like vowel/consonant blends, and punctuation, parts of speech! Somehow, they never taught him that stuff in the regular school. And they never taught cursive handwriting. It was supposed to be watched and mastered without instruction!

I think they have benefited academically, but I think it was damaging to the self esteem. These kids are smart, so they know what is going on. I wouldn't want to make the decision to keep a child back a full year.